PART 1 - Why Trying to Control Your Kids is Like Herding Cats in a Tornado
Ah, school avoidance – the ultimate parental challenge that requires the strategic genius of a chess grand master with the patience of a saint. If you're reading this, you've probably encountered the timeless battle cry: "I can't go to school today!" Fear not, weary parent, for I bring you a guide to navigating the treacherous waters of school avoidance.
Grab your coffee, put on your armor of patience, and let's dive in!
The Power Struggle Trap: A Parent’s Worst Nightmare
We’ve all been there—your kid digs in their heels and refuses to go to school, and you find yourself barking orders like a drill sergeant. After all, you’re the parent, right? You and the school have rules, and they must be followed. Enter the power struggle. Suddenly, you’re locked in a battle of wills, with neither side ready to back down. The advice from well-meaning friends and family? “Just make them go! You need to take control of the situation.” But what does that even mean? In most cases, it means you’re about to enter a power struggle that makes Game of Thrones look like a friendly round of Monopoly.
Here’s the thing: power struggles aren’t really about who’s in charge. They’re about emotions. When you try to control the situation by overpowering your child, you’re not just battling behavior; you’re battling difficult-to-control emotions – theirs AND yours. And as any person who’s been on either side of a power struggle knows, emotions don’t respond well to force.
The Illusion of Control
Let’s break down what people mean when they say “You need to be in control.” Do they mean that you should have a handle on every single thing your children do, say, and think? If so, these people clearly do not remember their own childhood, don’t have kids of their own, or they’ve forgotten what it was like when their little angel used a permanent marker as a face tattoo kit.
Sure, you might be able to force your child out the door, but at what cost? The real issue isn’t that they are intentionally defying you—it’s that something is going on underneath. Maybe your child is experiencing conflict with peers, falling behind with schoolwork, feeling out of place, or suffering from depression. When you’re focused on control, it’s easy to miss these signs of the real issue. Instead of solving the problem, you’re just slapping on a Band-Aid that’s going to peel off by the next school day.
Emotional Regulation: Not Just for Kids
So, what’s a parent to do? The first step is finding a way of disrupting the pattern. The key to breaking the cycle of Avoidance-Control-Fight-Cry-Repeat lies in the last place most of us want to look: within ourselves. That’s right, to productively engage with your child differently, you need to get a grip on your emotional reactions so you can stay calm and not inadvertently add fuel to the fire.
We all have triggers—those little buttons that, when pressed, make us react in ways we’re not proud of. Maybe it’s the fear that your child will fall behind, memories of your own school experiences, or worry about what others will think of your parenting. Whatever the trigger, it’s often what drives you to grip the control wheel so tightly that you’re white-knuckling it through the morning.
But here’s the kicker: reacting to your triggers only makes the power struggle worse. When you respond out of fear or anxiety, your child picks up on it. Kids assume that adults’ reactivity is about them and may even represent that they are so bad, so abnormal, that even their parents can’t handle them. Their resistance is fueled by a misinterpretation that they now need to be in charge because you aren’t. Now, it’s less about the issue at hand and more about everyone’s worry, hurt and fear swirling around.
The First Step Toward Change
A necessary first step is to identify your own triggers and find out what causes your largest reactions. Grab a notebook and take some time to reflect on your most recent power struggles. Take a deep breath and conduct an honest evaluation of your feelings and look for patterns:
Where were you?
What time was it? Was the issue interfering with what you had planned for the day?
What was your child doing that was difficult for you to experience?
What upset you most and why?
Besides anger, what other emotions were you experiencing?
How did you react?
What was driving your need to control the situation? Fear? Worry? Exhaustion? Or maybe just a desperate desire to stick to the schedule?
What was the end result?
What would you like to do differently in the future?
Once you’ve identified your triggers and reactions, you can get curious about how to do things differently. Instead of being a drill sergeant barking orders, you can become a detective, investigating what’s really going on with your child.
The Power of Connection
Here’s the secret: the opposite of control isn’t chaos—it’s connection. When you let go of the need to control, you create space for understanding and empathy. Instead of locking horns with your child, you can approach the situation as a team, working together to figure out what’s the source of the avoidance and possible solutions. Whatever it is, by focusing on connection rather than control, you’re more likely to get to the heart of the matter—and avoid the emotional meltdown (yours or theirs).
Letting Go of Control (and Winning Anyway)
At the end of the day, trying to control your child in a power struggle is like trying to stop a train with a spoon—it’s not going to work, and you’re both going to end up emotionally flattened. Instead, focus on identifying your triggers and addressing the situation with understanding and patience. Not only will this help you avoid the power struggle trap, but it will also teach your child that emotions are not something to be battled, but something to be understood and managed.
And who knows? You might just find that by letting go of control, you end up winning anyway. Because let’s face it, the only thing more powerful than control is connection. And no parent has ever regretted a stronger connection with their child.
Coming soon: Part 2
Part 1 of our 3-part series has offered a beginning strategy to disrupt the established pattern of conflict that often results from school refusal. Personal emotional regulation is hard, but it is worth the effort to open channels of communication with your child. Stay tuned for Parts 2 and 3 where we offer additional strategies and practical skills to further improve your student’s attendance.
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